The "Console Wars" Are Over

[SvennoJ]

Kyuu said:

Mobile gaming remains its own thing for the most part. It has some similarities with consoles/PC in f2p and indies, but besides this they're almost two distinct hobbies appealing to different crowds.

I think traditional "Console + PC" gaming is quite a bit bigger now than it was in the 7th gen if we are to look beyond the misleading hardware figures (which are inflated by the same users buying multiple systems). The industry is now big enough that stagnation wouldn't be a problem, and I don't think it's stagnating yet anyway. PC (which is more than Steam) continues to grow thanks primarily to Asia. Playstation is a bigger business than ever, and the Switch 2 is so far the fastest selling console of all time. It's just Xbox that is rapidly declining.

Newer stantionary consoles are losing ground to PC and Switch, thanks in part to Xbox's decline. But it's hard to quantify because the Switch can count as a home console as well. The incentive to buy multiple consoles is much lower than before for a good number of reasons (high prices, weak/limited exclusives, Nintendo and Sony making one console per generation, Xbox declining, etc) which means that software sales and user spensing will be concentrated across a fewer relevant platform. It doesn't really mean the industry declined since gen 7. I primarily gauge decline/growth on a gen on gen basis as opposed to year over year which is often temporary.

Even with PC, Xbox, f2p, and mtx excluded, PS4 and Switch combined are much bigger than PS3 + X360 + Wii. And honestly... as much as I dislike f2p and microtransactions, I can't just pretend that they don't count as a popularity measure. People put countless money/hours into these because they think they're worth it. The same goes for subscription services.

Agreed, but looking at gaming software revenue, that's what's stagnating and declining when correcting for inflation. (Apart from mobile where gaming software revenue is still growing)

Total volume of active gamers might still be increasing, but they're not spending their time on different new games, which is not good for a new 'competitor' to come in. The shift to ftp and gaas is good for the few that have a hit there, it makes it much more difficult for new comers to make a living.

Ftp and gaas are better platform agnostic. Instead of console wars its a battle for your available time instead of attracting you to a particular console. 

Fewer blockbuster games seem to be in the pipeline, maybe a result from reading the room. More focus on GAAS rather than attracting people with new single player / story games. And a new competitor is not going to bust in with the best place to play ARC Raiders. They would have to 'pull an original XBox' and buy it for exclusivity like how Halo launched XBox. (And the backlash against that would be quite a lot bigger today)


Anyway seems the big three have decided on how to divvy up the 'pie'. Nintendo focusing on handheld experience, Sony on the couch experience, MS on subscriptions and branding. PC jack of all trades. There's overlap of course, but no two/three similar 'boxes' competing for you 'loyalty' anymore.

And the result is also higher new game prices. Console wars kept game prices way below inflation for a long time. Inflation took a big jump as well, but game prices an even bigger one, no longer 'shackled' to console wars and no longer supported by growing total spending on new games. And that's a self reinforcing cycle, rising prices signalling a shrinking market (for new games / consoles).

The gaming landscape has been changing over the past decade.